62-year-old Kochi woman 'turns 44' at Bengaluru airport

Immigration officials on Saturday intercepted a 62-year-old woman from Kerala who was boarding a flight to Sharjah with a forged passport, which showed her age as 44.

The accused, Mary Thazhuthrath Parambil Peter, was later handed over to the BIAL police.

Mary, who is from Kochi, told the police that she was going to Sharjah on a tourist visa to look for a job as domestic help. Since those aged above 60 can’t be hired as per rules there, she approached a tout in Kochi who forged her date of birth in the passport, changing it from 1957 to 1975.

But her suspicious body language attracted the attention of KIA officials who intercepted her. They checked her documents and found out that her passport was forged.

She was held under various sections of the Passport Act and remanded in judicial custody.

In another incident, officials caught a 25-year-old engineer from Kochi who landed at the Bengaluru airport from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

Antony Farison’s passport had a fake stamp of Malaysia and the Indonesian immigration department. He was taken into custody for further investigation. It was learnt that he visited Indonesia on a tourist visa but overstayed there for employment.